Hey Everybody! Democracy's kicked in!
So big weekend here in D.C.
Like it or not reformed health care is here. Meh, with my internship keeping me focused on Afghanistan. I really don't care. But I do understand the historical implications of this event and it's been interesting none the less.
Take this last Saturday for example. So, friend and I decide to go walking to Capitol Hill. We wanted to take a look at the TEA protesters and do some reading/work outside. Well on our way there, we got stopped by a bigger, more impressive protest at Dupont Circle. The anti-war protest was hoppin! The anti-Bush, Cheney, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, even Haiti protesters were out and about. Many of the signs we saw attacked the cost of our deployments overseas, more so than the casualties taken. Lots of antisemitism (and I hate using that cliched word, but it applies here), anti-government, and anti-war. Though I obviously don't stand for anything they stand for - although I liked "Drop Tuition, Not Bombs!" - it was really cool to see a protest and democracy in action. Reports put this turn-out relatively low at 2,500 people. When we got to the White House we saw some remnants of protesting going on there as well.
We got to Capitol Hill to see protesters yell "Kill the Bill," but it wasn't as impressive. I think we got there late. Still interesting nonetheless. Yesterday, there was also an immigration protest yesterday as well. I didn't see that one, but I guess it was protest weekend in Washington D.C. Sunday night I did see the new Matt Damon "Green Zone." I liked it too. Though at first I thought it was going to be overly political and annoying (Matt Damon's character wouldn't shut up about the "intel" being bad), it turned out to be a nice political thriller. There were the basic messages of the critical mistakes preceding the invasion, chiefly the bad intelligence that led us to war. That was to be expected and since it's really fact to begin with it didn't bother me. The "Bourne-esqueness" of the movie overshadowed the politics in it and I'll actually probably buy it when it comes out. Go see it for a good action thriller and nothing more. You'll like it that way.
Probably my toughest week at work this week.I’m still doing a lot of significant, substantive work, but since my boss was leaving for France on Friday, I was under the gun the whole week to get both the supplement and the NATO Threat Assessment as finished as possible. I also had to help look up information on all my boss’ meetings in France as well as metro information. With him being gone for a week he wanted to have all the writing done in both reports so for this week we interns only have to do proofreading. What made this tougher was the type of statistics I had to look up and compile for the Threat Assessment. They were economic import/export numbers between NATO members and Central/South Asian countries. There was a lot of adding/subtracting and number crunching to get the most accurate numbers in my boss’ hands. It was just stressful. I did get to drive around again which was kinda stressful, but only because I had to pick someone up, a former German military officer, but he didn't show. I also drove my boss to the Treasury and one of his aids to Capitol Hill. Driving around the city isn't hard at all; I like it. And I also like knowing how to get to places and discovering where everything is.
This week looks to be more quiet since my boss is gone. He said I could come in late and leave early if I'm struggling for things to do. That's about all I know. I'll try to get pictures of some of the rallies up here sometime. Thanks for reading!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Vingt-et-Un!
Well the twenty-first has come and gone and it couldn't have gone any better. Saturday night was fantastic as four of my JMU pals came up and everyone plus some friends from Butler University came out to Dupont Circle to celebrate my birthday. It was an extremely fun night. The next morning I woke up (feeling surprisingly well) and opened up some great presents from the family and even got a couple from the friends here. Despite not being able to be with family this was an excellent birthday. I have some videos but they are taking forever to add on here. I'll try facebook later.
Last week saw some more substantial work on the supplement at the Center. Ryan's been making me add more to it due to the amount of calls he's getting from the embassies. That and a trip to the Turkish embassy made him rethink how much detail he wants going into the report. Hopefully, I believe it is almost done and should be released online by the end of the week. Now I'm switching over to reviewing the second report, the NATO Threat Assessment. The first half of the report is due out by the end of the week. Ryan wants to get it out before he makes this trip to France next week. There's a lot that needs to be done in a short amount of time, but I like all the work I'm doing. Writing in the supplement has been great and I look forward to seeing that end result.
He's an interesting story from last week. So on Wednesday last week I had to drive Dr. Abshire to the Federal Reserve to meet Chairman Bernanke. I haven't driven since I've been here and the amount of driving I've done in inner-city DC is limited as is, but I've done plenty in St. Louis. Traffic doesn't bother me as much as trying to figure out where I'm trying to get to. So I ran home to get my GPS and a pair of Aviator sunglasses as a co-worker suggested I should wear some when I'm loitering around the Reserve waiting for the meeting to get over with. That way I'll look more like a bodyguard than just an intern in a nice car. And a nice car it was! Dr. Abshire has a tan Cadillac worth more than my life and I had to drive it in DC. So anyway, I was able to make it pretty easily to the Federal Reserve to drop him and one of his assistants off. The hard part was finding a place to park for an hour, but fortunately I did and it was two hour parking so I was okay. I did look completely awesome though. In a Cadillac with gold framed Aviators on, a tie, navy blue blazer, and khaki pants completed the ensemble. I pretty much looked amazing. Anyway, I picked him up and drove back successfully without getting a scratch on the car. And I'm sure I've earned myself driving privileges for the rest of the spring.
So I talked about this week for work. I also have a five page paper due on Friday. I'll start on that tomorrow. Class is taking a trip to USAID on Friday so I'm planning on asking a lot of questions and I might even pack a resume. I need to get a better idea of what Foreign Service Officers do though before I start looking for a job there. I know they get a pretty bad rep here, but let's be honest, the whole diplomatic field gets a bad rep here, it doesn't matter who's president. Wednesday we have class so we really can't go out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day after work, but we might go after class for a drink or two. I'm exciting I now get to join my friends when they go out to bars on the weekends. That will help me relax and be more social on the weekends. So now I'm going to watch the first episode of The Pacific online. I've known about this show since I was in high school, learning about it in the fall of 2006. It was originally suppose to be out last summer, but got pushed back. I always wondered where I would be and what I would be doing when this show came out. Never thought I'd be in Washington D.C. working as an intern. Hope everyone has a good week and thanks for the birthday wishes.
Last week saw some more substantial work on the supplement at the Center. Ryan's been making me add more to it due to the amount of calls he's getting from the embassies. That and a trip to the Turkish embassy made him rethink how much detail he wants going into the report. Hopefully, I believe it is almost done and should be released online by the end of the week. Now I'm switching over to reviewing the second report, the NATO Threat Assessment. The first half of the report is due out by the end of the week. Ryan wants to get it out before he makes this trip to France next week. There's a lot that needs to be done in a short amount of time, but I like all the work I'm doing. Writing in the supplement has been great and I look forward to seeing that end result.
He's an interesting story from last week. So on Wednesday last week I had to drive Dr. Abshire to the Federal Reserve to meet Chairman Bernanke. I haven't driven since I've been here and the amount of driving I've done in inner-city DC is limited as is, but I've done plenty in St. Louis. Traffic doesn't bother me as much as trying to figure out where I'm trying to get to. So I ran home to get my GPS and a pair of Aviator sunglasses as a co-worker suggested I should wear some when I'm loitering around the Reserve waiting for the meeting to get over with. That way I'll look more like a bodyguard than just an intern in a nice car. And a nice car it was! Dr. Abshire has a tan Cadillac worth more than my life and I had to drive it in DC. So anyway, I was able to make it pretty easily to the Federal Reserve to drop him and one of his assistants off. The hard part was finding a place to park for an hour, but fortunately I did and it was two hour parking so I was okay. I did look completely awesome though. In a Cadillac with gold framed Aviators on, a tie, navy blue blazer, and khaki pants completed the ensemble. I pretty much looked amazing. Anyway, I picked him up and drove back successfully without getting a scratch on the car. And I'm sure I've earned myself driving privileges for the rest of the spring.
So I talked about this week for work. I also have a five page paper due on Friday. I'll start on that tomorrow. Class is taking a trip to USAID on Friday so I'm planning on asking a lot of questions and I might even pack a resume. I need to get a better idea of what Foreign Service Officers do though before I start looking for a job there. I know they get a pretty bad rep here, but let's be honest, the whole diplomatic field gets a bad rep here, it doesn't matter who's president. Wednesday we have class so we really can't go out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day after work, but we might go after class for a drink or two. I'm exciting I now get to join my friends when they go out to bars on the weekends. That will help me relax and be more social on the weekends. So now I'm going to watch the first episode of The Pacific online. I've known about this show since I was in high school, learning about it in the fall of 2006. It was originally suppose to be out last summer, but got pushed back. I always wondered where I would be and what I would be doing when this show came out. Never thought I'd be in Washington D.C. working as an intern. Hope everyone has a good week and thanks for the birthday wishes.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Week Eight (Last Week)
Well these weeks at work seem to be getting better and better as they progress. Last Monday my boss asked me if I wanted to write in the supplemental update for our first report. So all of last week I was writing in the supplemental update.
Really what we are trying to do now is to continually update Allied contributions to the Afghan war as they come. We sent out reports to all the embassies and a fair amount have gotten back to us with some of their own numbers that we'll use in our supplement. What I did was add a "Recent Actions" update to every NATO country. The last week in February all I did was find news articles on allied contributions so I put all the updates I had into the report. Then I was able to write a little bit in the "political background" section which is really an analysis of a country's political situation. It was difficult writing on the Netherlands section as they have a big mess on their hands themselves.
I also completely wrote a new section on non-NATO ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) contributions to the conflict. So for Australia (non-NATO ISAF member) I wrote about their contributions and how they are planning a pull-out in 2011 (I think) and how their top general believes they could contribute an extra 6,000 troops when and if the Dutch leave.
Anyway, we've got the think mostly prepped we just need to fix the table of contents. However, for my efforts my name will get to go down in "Project Staff" instead of CSPC Interns in the "Thanks" section. So yeah, I'm going to get a report with my name on it. Yeah, yeah. This one will be strictly online and will be updated continuously as changes occur. So that was work last week for me; I was making a real solid contribution to the Center's efforts.
I was also busy last week for school. My friend Jeremy and I had to give a presentation on Friday over the humanitarian crisis in Burma (Myanmar), whatever. That took up a lot of my time at night last week as it is still really hard to get work done here. However, we got it done and my teacher said we gave a good presentation.
This weekend we had highs in the 60s so a lot of walking was in order. Saturday saw us going to the Jefferson and FDR memorials on the south side of the National Mall. Sunday we walked Massachusetts Ave to see all the embassies on Embassy Row. I'll try to get pictures of that up sometime soon. I was impressed with the Turkish embassy the most out of the ones we saw. I also had lunch with a good friend of mine from Moberly on Saturday morning, Mr. Sam Richardson. He was in town working and called me up so he took me to breakfast at the fancy Wardman Park Hotel. We had a great breakfast and a quick two hour conversation. It was nice to see a familiar face.
Ummm, we switched up our workouts at the gym so my body has been killing me, but it is paying off going to the gym pretty consistently. We should be going every day this week because its technically spring break so I don't have classes on Wednesday or Friday. Ironing is improving now that I discovered using even the little ironing boards make things easier. Cooking continues to be a plus, but I'm still only cooking the same thing: chicken, rice/pasta, and green beans/corn. It doesn't bother me though; I typically eat around 10:00 after I've worked out and ran so at that point I'll eat anything.
So the big news: five more days and then I turn 21. This is turning out to be the event of the semester for everyone as my friends really can't wait for me to be able to go out on the weekends or go out to happy hour. Also, many of my JMU friends are coming by to for dinner and for the "zero-hour" festivities. I honestly can't believe it's been eight weeks. Technically, I've only worked six and half weeks. First week was only half a week because I started on Wednesday and we had that snow week a month ago. Spring semester has always flown by and when your at work every day till 5 the days go even faster than at school.
Can't think of too much else to say. I'm excited baseball is starting soon as always. GO CUBS!!! I'll try to get one post in before Saturday but if I don't I promise I'll do one Sunday. Also, I'm really exhausted and it's almost bed time so I'm not going to read this over. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes. Thanks for reading again.
Really what we are trying to do now is to continually update Allied contributions to the Afghan war as they come. We sent out reports to all the embassies and a fair amount have gotten back to us with some of their own numbers that we'll use in our supplement. What I did was add a "Recent Actions" update to every NATO country. The last week in February all I did was find news articles on allied contributions so I put all the updates I had into the report. Then I was able to write a little bit in the "political background" section which is really an analysis of a country's political situation. It was difficult writing on the Netherlands section as they have a big mess on their hands themselves.
I also completely wrote a new section on non-NATO ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) contributions to the conflict. So for Australia (non-NATO ISAF member) I wrote about their contributions and how they are planning a pull-out in 2011 (I think) and how their top general believes they could contribute an extra 6,000 troops when and if the Dutch leave.
Anyway, we've got the think mostly prepped we just need to fix the table of contents. However, for my efforts my name will get to go down in "Project Staff" instead of CSPC Interns in the "Thanks" section. So yeah, I'm going to get a report with my name on it. Yeah, yeah. This one will be strictly online and will be updated continuously as changes occur. So that was work last week for me; I was making a real solid contribution to the Center's efforts.
I was also busy last week for school. My friend Jeremy and I had to give a presentation on Friday over the humanitarian crisis in Burma (Myanmar), whatever. That took up a lot of my time at night last week as it is still really hard to get work done here. However, we got it done and my teacher said we gave a good presentation.
This weekend we had highs in the 60s so a lot of walking was in order. Saturday saw us going to the Jefferson and FDR memorials on the south side of the National Mall. Sunday we walked Massachusetts Ave to see all the embassies on Embassy Row. I'll try to get pictures of that up sometime soon. I was impressed with the Turkish embassy the most out of the ones we saw. I also had lunch with a good friend of mine from Moberly on Saturday morning, Mr. Sam Richardson. He was in town working and called me up so he took me to breakfast at the fancy Wardman Park Hotel. We had a great breakfast and a quick two hour conversation. It was nice to see a familiar face.
Ummm, we switched up our workouts at the gym so my body has been killing me, but it is paying off going to the gym pretty consistently. We should be going every day this week because its technically spring break so I don't have classes on Wednesday or Friday. Ironing is improving now that I discovered using even the little ironing boards make things easier. Cooking continues to be a plus, but I'm still only cooking the same thing: chicken, rice/pasta, and green beans/corn. It doesn't bother me though; I typically eat around 10:00 after I've worked out and ran so at that point I'll eat anything.
So the big news: five more days and then I turn 21. This is turning out to be the event of the semester for everyone as my friends really can't wait for me to be able to go out on the weekends or go out to happy hour. Also, many of my JMU friends are coming by to for dinner and for the "zero-hour" festivities. I honestly can't believe it's been eight weeks. Technically, I've only worked six and half weeks. First week was only half a week because I started on Wednesday and we had that snow week a month ago. Spring semester has always flown by and when your at work every day till 5 the days go even faster than at school.
Can't think of too much else to say. I'm excited baseball is starting soon as always. GO CUBS!!! I'll try to get one post in before Saturday but if I don't I promise I'll do one Sunday. Also, I'm really exhausted and it's almost bed time so I'm not going to read this over. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes. Thanks for reading again.
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